A Team In Need Of Rescue

Hang on for a minute...we're trying to find some more stories you might like.

Email This Story

Send email to this addressEnter Your NameAdd a comment hereVerification

Will Connors A Team In Need Of Rescue 1/22/18

Lakeshores swim and dive team has been on a steep decline ever since the 2015-16 season. I joined as a kid looking to do something in my free time and what I found myself doing was becoming very involved in the program. Now being my senior year I have watched the team go from its peak to one of the smallest teams in the county. Coached by Shaugn Kunkel and managed by Emily Gordon, the team consists of nine boys, four of which started this year. Captains include Max Michalec and I and Why the team is so small and why the program is dying is still unclear.A good guess would be the sport is way to hard, and is very demanding. Unlike running where you only really work your legs, swimming you have to use your whole body. Swimming is extremely exhausting and without proper conditioning it can take a real toll on the body. Our team starts swimming in November and usually ends in December. In Between these months the team has 20 meets. In these meets there are 9 events including diving. Swimmers are aloud four events, two relays and two individual events.Most teams around the area have a very large number of swimmers, a normal for other schools would be like twenty boys. For Lake Shore a normal is nine boys if we are even lucky. For some reason the swim program has just been dying. Coaches try our hardest to recruit boys for the team but its no luck. There seems to be some disconnect between the sport being very hard and the total outcome of the program.When you join the program you just don’t join a team, you join a family.The boys all care for each other just like we are all brothers. It’s not all business either, 50% of the time we mess around and have fun. Getting yelled at for not swimming will turn into an ongoing joke for the whole year.

Swimming is no joke of a sport and not for the weak. Many kids join for the first week then leave without saying anything, None stay around long enough to see it’s not that hard when you do it with your team. It may be an individual but we still are a team and that’s a fact. The swimmers are in fear that a cut for the swim may be in the close future and It is my senior year so it would not affect me but I worry for the young, talented swimmers that are on the team. Although this future is almost certain, if we could just show people swimming isn’t just throwing up after every lap and tight speedos maybe we could get more boys and save the team.